arXiv subjects

Xiaoling Li

Publications and source records attributed to Xiaoling Li.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Behavior Specification-Guided Program Synthesis for Binary Deobfuscation

Deobfuscation is critical to reverse engineering and security analysis because it restores the readability and analyzability of obfuscated code. However, existing research primarily focuses on source-code deobfuscation, while binary-level deobfuscation remains largely underexplored despite its practical importance when source code is unavailable. Existing binary deobfuscation methods typically decompile binaries into pseudocode and then apply structural transformations. However, because compilation discards high-level semantics such as precise type information and source-level structures, this decompilation-based paradigm often produces low-quality code and provides limited assurance that the recovered code preserves the runtime behavior of the original program. To address these limitations, we propose a paradigm shift from structural transformation to behavior-driven synthesis. Our core insight is that although obfuscation distorts a program's internal structure, semantics-preserving transformations must retain its observable execution behavior. Based on this insight, we introduce BinMirror, an approach that reformulates binary deobfuscation as a behavior-specification-guided program synthesis task. By treating dynamic execution traces and interaction snapshots as behavioral specifications, BinMirror synthesizes high-quality source code and validates it against runtime observations collected from heavily obfuscated binaries. Extensive evaluations on 1.5 million synthetically obfuscated binaries show that BinMirror significantly outperforms state-of-the-art baselines, achieving a unit-test Pass@1 of 74.5% under extreme obfuscation. These results demonstrate the practical utility of BinMirror in restoring semantic clarity for real-world security analysis.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2026

Artifact Correction for Echo-Planar Imaging at Low-Field and Ultra-Low-Field MRI

Purpose: Echo-planar imaging (EPI) in low-field (LF) and ultra-low-field MRI (ULF) suffers from severe Nyquist ghost artifacts due to odd-even k-space misalignment. This study develops a reference-free artifact correction pipeline that reduces reliance on conventional reference scans while achieving improved ghost suppression. Methods: Starting from the traditional reference-scan-based ghost artifact correction method, we first introduce a peak-alignment-based ghost artifact correction method to correct odd-even line displacement without reference data. To further reduce residual artifacts, an interpolation-and-resampling strategy is applied. The combined method was evaluated using EPI and diffusion-weighted EPI data in LF and ULF. Results: The proposed pipeline effectively mitigated Nyquist ghosts, improved structural continuity, and enhanced signal uniformity. Peak-alignment-based ghost artifact correction method alone provided comparable artifact suppression to reference-scan-based ghost artifact correction method, while interpolation and resampling further suppressed residual artifacts, enabling reliable visualization of brain structures under ULF conditions. Conclusion: A practical, reference-free correction pipeline is presented for LF and ULF EPI, combining peak-alignment-based ghost artifact correction method and interpolation-resampling to achieve efficient ghost suppression and expand the clinical applicability of low-field MRI systems, providing both theoretical guidance and practical experience for ULF EPI-based DWI imaging.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2026

Three Heads Are Better Than One: A Multi-perspective Reasoning Framework for Enhanced Vulnerability Detection

Automated vulnerability detection is crucial for enhancing software security by identifying potential flaws that attackers could exploit, thereby reducing the reliance on labor-intensive manual code audits. Recent advancements have shifted towards leveraging large language models (LLMs) for vulnerability detection, with techniques like Vul-RAG and VulnSage demonstrating progress through structured prompting and external knowledge integration. However, these approaches typically rely on a single reasoning paradigm, limiting their ability to address the complex and diverse nature of real-world vulnerabilities. To overcome these limitations, we propose ReasonVul, a novel multi-perspective reasoning framework that harnesses cognitive synergy among three specialized LLM agents, each embodying a distinct reasoning mode. The framework begins with independent analyses of the source code, followed by a structured debate mechanism to resolve conflicts through iterative rebuttal and revision, ultimately converging on a collaborative judgment. Evaluated on the PrimeVul dataset, ReasonVul achieves a PairAcc of 40.00% and an F1-score of 72.52%, surpassing the best baseline by 81.24% in PairAcc. Further tests on the JITVUL dataset confirm its generalizability, with a PairAcc of 28.67%. Additionally, we analyzed 542 conflict cases and found that 389 were correctly resolved, highlighting the framework's ability to uncover hidden vulnerabilities through the error-correction mechanism driven by the debate. This work emphasizes the importance of multi-perspective reasoning and collaborative validation in achieving robust and comprehensive vulnerability detection in real-world software systems.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2024

Hybrid Cooperative Co-Evolution Algorithm for Deadlock-prone Distributed Assembly Flowshop Scheduling with Limited buffers Using Petri nets

The distributed assembly flowshop scheduling problem (DAFSP) can be applied to immense manufacturing environments. In DAFSP, jobs are first processed in distributed flowshops, and then assembled into final products by an assembly machine, which usually has limited buffers in practical application. This limited capacity can lead to deadlocks, halting job completion and blocking the entire manufacturing process. However, existing scheduling methods fail to address these deadlocks in DAFSP effectively. As such, we develop a hybrid cooperative co-evolution (HCCE) algorithm for solving the deadlock-prone DAFSP by minimizing the makespan. For the first time, we use Petri nets to analyze the deadlocks in DAFSP and propose a Petri net-based deadlock amending method (IDAM), which is further integrated into HCCE to ensure the feasibility (i.e., deadlock-freeness) of solutions. Importantly, HCCE contains an elite archive (EAR) and two subpopulations. It uses the problem-specific operators for heuristic initialization and global-search. To enhance the quality and diversity of solutions, an information transfer mechanism (ITM) is developed among subpopulation and EAR, and four local-search operators are performed sequentially on each individual in EAR. Finally, comprehensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed HCCE algorithm.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2024

Multi-Treatment Multi-Task Uplift Modeling for Enhancing User Growth

As a key component in boosting online user growth, uplift modeling aims to measure individual user responses (e.g., whether to play the game) to various treatments, such as gaming bonuses, thereby enhancing business outcomes. However, previous research typically considers a single-task, single-treatment setting, where only one treatment exists and the overall treatment effect is measured by a single type of user response. In this paper, we propose a Multi-Treatment Multi-Task (MTMT) uplift network to estimate treatment effects in a multi-task scenario. We identify the multi-treatment problem as a causal inference problem with a tiered response, comprising a base effect (from offering a treatment) and an incremental effect (from offering a specific type of treatment), where the base effect can be numerically much larger than the incremental effect. Specifically, MTMT separately encodes user features and treatments. The user feature encoder uses a multi-gate mixture of experts (MMOE) network to encode relevant user features, explicitly learning inter-task relations. The resultant embeddings are used to measure natural responses per task. Furthermore, we introduce a treatment-user feature interaction module to model correlations between each treatment and user feature. Consequently, we separately measure the base and incremental treatment effect for each task based on the produced treatment-aware representations. Experimental results based on an offline public dataset and an online proprietary dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of MTMT in single/multi-treatment and single/multi-task settings. Additionally, MTMT has been deployed in our gaming platform to improve user experience.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2024

AgentFL: Scaling LLM-based Fault Localization to Project-Level Context

Fault Localization (FL) is an essential step during the debugging process. With the strong capabilities of code comprehension, the recent Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated promising performance in diagnosing bugs in the code. Nevertheless, due to LLMs' limited performance in handling long contexts, existing LLM-based fault localization remains on localizing bugs within a small code scope (i.e., a method or a class), which struggles to diagnose bugs for a large code scope (i.e., an entire software system). To address the limitation, this paper presents AgentFL, a multi-agent system based on ChatGPT for automated fault localization. By simulating the behavior of a human developer, AgentFL models the FL task as a three-step process, which involves comprehension, navigation, and confirmation. Within each step, AgentFL hires agents with diversified expertise, each of which utilizes different tools to handle specific tasks. Particularly, we adopt a series of auxiliary strategies such as Test Behavior Tracking, Document-Guided Search, and Multi-Round Dialogue to overcome the challenges in each step. The evaluation on the widely used Defects4J-V1.2.0 benchmark shows that AgentFL can localize 157 out of 395 bugs within Top-1, which outperforms the other LLM-based approaches and exhibits complementarity to the state-of-the-art learning-based techniques. Additionally, we confirm the indispensability of the components in AgentFL with the ablation study and demonstrate the usability of AgentFL through a user study. Finally, the cost analysis shows that AgentFL spends an average of only 0.074 dollars and 97 seconds for a single bug.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2024

A Data-driven dE/dx Simulation with Normalizing Flow

In high-energy physics, precise measurements rely on highly reliable detector simulations. Traditionally, these simulations involve incorporating experiment data to model detector responses and fine-tuning them. However, due to the complexity of the experiment data, tuning the simulation can be challenging. One crucial aspect for charged particle identification is the measurement of energy deposition per unit length (referred to as dE/dx). This paper proposes a data-driven dE/dx simulation method using the Normalizing Flow technique, which can learn the dE/dx distribution directly from experiment data. By employing this method, not only can the need for manual tuning of the dE/dx simulation be eliminated, but also high-precision simulation can be achieved.

hep-ex↗